Introduction

To Maya Cosmogenesis 2012 by John Major
Jenkins

Fixing Our Sights

My
fascination with the Maya began when I visited Mexico and Central America in
1986. This was the first of several journeys I undertook, "traveling on a
shoestring" through the remnants of a vast and mysterious civilization. I
explored dozens of ruins, many of them over a thousand years old. From the
Yucatán in the north to Honduras in the south, from Belize in the east to
Mexico City in the west, a vast civilization presented itself to me, and I was
awestruck by its unfathomed mysteries. This region is called, appropriately
enough, Mesoamerica—the middle of America. It is here that the Maya
civilization arose, and it has tenaciously defied being fully understood.

That
first journey south of the border was a turning point in my life, a commitment
to learning about the profound history of my home continent. Leaving Chicago on
a dismal December day with a thousand dollars in my pocket, I looked forward to
several months of adventure, exploring ancient ruins and making friends among
the contemporary Maya. Above all, I hoped to catch a glimpse of that elusive
ancient knowledge, find some direction for my own life and, perhaps, to
discovery a personal mission. My travels led me from Mexico City through
Oaxaca, where I visited the Zapotec capital of Monte Alban. After a few weeks
dreaming on the coastal beaches of Oaxaca, I made my way to the highlands of
Chiapas, where I welcomed in the New Year, 1987. Now I was ready for the heart of
the journey: Guatemala, with its volcanic peaks, beautiful Lake Atitlan, and
dozens of ancient ruins. Most importantly to me, the traditional Quiché
Maya—some six million of them—were still living in the highlands, in remote
villages where they still counted the days according to the ancient calendar
and followed age-old traditions. And deep in Guatemala's northern Peten
rainforest, accessible only by a bone-jarring sixteen-hour bus ride on muddy
and dangerous roads, I found Tikal,my
personal mecca.

I
can remember a moment when, seven weeks into the trip,I was overcome by the sprawling former
metropolis of Tikal. Sitting on the steps of the Central Acropolis, I looked
around me at the towering sentinels of stone, their upper platforms stretching
above the jungle canopy like altars to the stars, and I listened carefully to
the wind whisper messages of a far off time, and of another world. I thought
about the expanse of time and the depth of space above me. This place had been
home to some fifty thousand people at a time when London was a dirty market
town of a thousand. Questions began to stir in my mind. What drove the Maya to
such feats of accomplishment? What was their understanding about human nature,
the stars, and the cosmos? Where did they come from? What caused the demise of
their thriving cities? My questions were a natural outgrowth of a lifelong
search for answers about the nature of life, death, and human spirituality.

From
an early age I had beenfascinated by
the world of ideas. I had devoured everything I could on philosophy and
cosmology. To me, cosmology involves more than just the study of the cosmos
andthe nature of the world, but also
includes the role of human spirituality. My youthful curiousity led me through
readings in science and philosophy, and deeper into Eastern mysticism. I soon
found myself puzzling over what was happening in the world, where we were all
headed, and what role human beings play in the evolution of life and
consciousness. Ultimately, I became interested in Native American beliefs,the Hopi prophecies, and then the Maya.
These interests led me to a contemplative moment at Tikal when, at age
twenty-two, I intuited that the knowledge of the ancient Maya was going to play
a significant role in the future development of Western philosophy and culture.
There was something deep and profound in the stones on which I sat, and I
sensed that the Maya where advanced in ways that my own world could barely
appreciate or understand. Their minds seemed attuned to the cosmic spaces.Scholars had recognized Maya kings as
priests, fully involved in both the political and spiritual life of their
culture, but I envisioned Maya kings as time travellers, scientists,
skywatchers, and magicians, capable of feats recognized only in ancient Hindu
and Buddhist texts. While gazing at the carved monuments of the temple plazas
of Guatemala's ruined cities, I saw Maya king-shamans journeying along sky
ropes, passing between worlds, and communicating with other times and places. A
lost knowledge echoed among the stones, fragmented, awaiting rediscovery.

But
what was this ancient knowledge? At that point on my path, I still wasn't sure.
I felt it had something to do with the sophisticated calendar systems used by
the Maya, and I remembered reading in my guidebook that one of the Maya
calendars was due to "end" on December 21, 2012. That date wasn't
very far off. Why did the ancient Maya choose that date? I wondered. What is
the true meaning of the Maya calendar end-date in A.D. 2012? The answer to this
question became my personal quest.A
brief reading of the literature on this topic did not offer much apart from
unsatisfying generalizations. My gut feeling was that astronomy was involved,
and yet I could not locate any academic books that directly addressed this
possibility. That was over ten years ago.

Since
1986, the study of Maya science and religion has progressed by leaps and
bounds. Archaeologists continued to uncover ancient ruins and excavated
thousands ofcarved monuments, jade artifacts,
rich burial tombs, painted ceramic vases, and examples of the hieroglyphic
writing invented by the Maya. Scholars made enormous progress deciphering the
Maya script. Specialists can now read almost all of these hieroglyphs, which
reveal detailed histories for each Maya kingdom. In addition, scholars found
and deciphered sacred texts that describe events that occured during the
world's creation and successive recreations. Many of these texts have direct
bearing on the meaning of the 2012 end-date. Another recent breakthrough
occurred when scholars realized that Maya myth describes astronomical events.
In other words, there is a secret cosmological dimension encoded into Maya
mythology. The Creation myth of the Maya, the Popol Vuh, recounts the adventures of their most important deities
and culture heroes. Since these Maya deities represent astronomical objects
such as stars and planets, their activities thus describe astronomical
processes. All of this evidence would provide a key to interpreting the true
scope of Maya knowledge, but it was not widely known back in 1986. It wasn't
until the 1992 Austin Hieroglyphic Meeting that Maya scholar Linda Schele
revealed her interpretation of Maya Creation myth, in which she emphasized the
relationship between myth and astronomy. Her work was hailed as a breakthrough,
and was fully rendered in her 1993 book Maya
Cosmos, coauthored with David Freidel and Joy Parker. I immediately saw the
value of this new mytho-astronomical perspective, and it became my guiding principle
as I searched more deeply into the Maya mysteries.

Upon
returning from that first trip south of the border, I began a course of study
that has resulted, over ten years, in seven books devoted to exploring the
esoteric secrets of Maya calendar science and religion. It is amazing what you
can do with a library card. I waded through popular and academic writings on
Maya astronomy, culture, religion, and calendar science. In mybook Tzolkin:
Visionary Perspectives and Calendar Studies,I reconstructed the Maya Venus calendar and explored the nature
of the 260-day Mayan sacred calendar, called the tzolkin. In so doing, I was led to a closer look at another Maya
calendar, the Long Count. The Long Count calendar operates separately from the
tzolkin and tracks very large periods of time. I learned that the cycle of time
that ends in A.D. 2012 is a period of some 5,125 years. The Maya called this a
period of 13 "baktuns," in which each baktun lasts about 394 years.
This large cycle began back in 3114 B.C. However,I realized that this does not mean the Long Count was invented
that far back. In fact, I discovered that the Long Count calendar was invented
only about 2,100 years ago, when monuments dated in the Long Count start
appearing in the archaeological record. For example, the very first "Long
Count monument" dates to 37 B.C. As such, the 3114 B.C.
"beginning" date appears to have been a back calculation. The Maya
astronomers calculated that between 3114 B.C. and A.D. 2012, a total of 13
"baktuns" would elapse.

But
why, I asked myself, did this 13-baktun Great Cycle of the Long Count calendar
end in A.D. 2012? Why not A.D. 1712, or A.D. 2650? What determined the
placement of the 13-baktun Great Cycle in real time? I noticed that the 2012
end-date occurs precisely on the December solstice. Could it be that the
"end" date was the intended anchor for the placement of the Long
Count calendar, rather than the "beginning" date? I eventually found
that some authors have attempted interpretations of the end-date. For example,
Frank Waters, in his 1975 book Mexico
Mystique, analyzed astrology charts for the end-date.1 These
were standard earth-centered charts, and a professional astrologer described
the configuration of planets as being rare. This was intriguing information,
yet somehow it just wasn't satisfying to me. I felt that, certainly, astronomy
was involved in the Mayan end-date, but it would have to be something really big to justify the end of a cycle of
more than 5,000 years. Standard horoscope interpretations just do not address
the Maya belief that a World Age would be ending. More recently, The Mayan Prophecies, by Maurice
Cotterell and Adrian Gilbert, proposed that the 2012 end-date was chosen
because of sunspot extremes and their effects on human fertility. Theirs is an
interesting hypothesis, but in my view their theory has problems. I reviewed
their book carefully in 1995, interviewed Adrian Gilbert, and concluded that
some doubt hung over the sunspot hypothesis.2

One
thing was certain: The Maya believed the world will "end" in A.D.
2012. But what does this mean? The end-times doctrine can be interpreted in two
ways: metaphorically and literally. My metaphorical interpretationis that the Maya believed that around the
year we call 2012, a large chapter in human history will be coming to an end.
All the values and assumptions of the previous World Age will expire, and a new
phase of human growth will commence. Ultimately, I believe the Maya understood
this to be a natural process, in which new life follows a death. We all
experience this cycle of death and rebirth in our own lives: our most difficult
experiences of suffering and loss are ultimately our best teachers. Imagine
this principle taking effect on the level of the entire human race.

The
literal interpretation of the Maya concept of aWorld Age shift in 2012 is emphasized by many writers for the
sheer drama of it.In this scenario,
humanity literally is going to experience cataclysm and upheavel, earthquakes,
disasters, famine, and plague. This Earth cleansing, however, is the prelude
for a global renewal. While this scenario may seem bleak, the Maya doctrine of
World Ages extends back over four previous epochs, each of which ended in
cataclysm and the transformation of humanity into something completely new, a
new being better suited for life in the new world. So even in this catastrophic
scenario, the cyclic renewal of the Earth and the spiritual unfoldment of
humanity prevails.

With
so many questions still unanswered, I continued trying to satisfy my thirst for
understanding the true meaning of the Maya end-date. Two considerations led me
to see the end-date in a larger context. First, Western astrologers, that is,
astrologers who specialize in non-Maya astrology, are saying that we are
entering the Age of Aquarius, that a new World Age is, indeed, about to begin.
A concept that originated in ancient Greek and Egyptian science, the
"shifting of the ages" is based in an astronomical phenomenon called
the precession of the equinoxes. The precession of the equinoxes, or simply
precession, iscaused by the fact that
Earth wobbles on its axis. Earth spins on its axis once every twenty-four
hours, resulting in the sunrise and sunset that defines our day. However, the
Earth, like a spinning top, also slowly wobbles or "precesses" on its
axis. According to modern astronomical calculations, one full
"wobble" (one full precessional cycle) takes about 25,800 years.For observers on Earth, this wobbling gives
the impression that the sun rises against the background of different
constellations as the centuries elapse. The result is that the equinox sun will
soon be rising in the constellation of Aquarius rather than in Pisces, as it
has for the past 2,000 years. Thus, we are moving out of the Age of Pisces and
into the Age of Aquarius. Precession seemed to provide the "big
event" I was looking for. I wondered if the Maya astronomers recognized
the same twelve constellations as Western astrologers do,and if the Long Count calendar end-date
marks our passage into the Aquarian Age.

The
secondconsideration that emerged in my
research also points to precession as being associated with the Long Count
calendar. As already mentioned, the cycle that ends in A.D. 2012 is a period of
13 baktuns. A baktun is the fifth-place value in the base-twenty Long Count
calendar, and it equals 144,000 days. Thirteen of these baktuns equal a
5,125-year "Great Cycle."Mayan and Aztec documents relate a belief in four or five World Ages,
and we currently live in the last one. Amazingly, five Great Cycles equal one
precessional cycle! Early on in my research I thought the Maya end-date simply
reflected our movement into the Age of Aquarius. However, as I searched deeper
into the Maya wisdom I learned that ancient Maya astronomers looked at the
heavens differently than their Western counterparts in Greece: they used
thirteen constellations rather than twelve. This fact would result in a
different timing for the anticipated shift in World Ages, one that would not
agree with the dawn of the Aquarian Age recognized in Western astrology. I had
to rule out the dawning of the Age of Aquarius as an explanation for the Maya
end-date in 2012. Besides, most modern astrologers were putting off the advent
of the Aquarian Age until the twenty-second century—over 200 years after the Maya end-date!Something else seemed to be going on,
something involving precession but that was alien to the Western assumptions
Iwas encountering in my readings.

I
reformulated my guiding question: What event in the cycle of precession does
2012 represent? As fate would have it, the right book appeared before me at the
right time.The year was 1993. The book
was Hamlet's Mill. Authored by two
respected scholars, Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Giorgio de
Santillana and University of Frankfurt history of science professor Hertha von
Dechend, Hamlet's Mill turned out to
be a treasure trove of ideas. The book's subheading says a lot about its
contents: "An Essay on Myth and the Frame of Time." The "frame
of time" refers to the celestial frame—the contents of the sky, including
the stars, constellations, and the Milky Way. Our orientation to this
"stellar frame" changes over time with precession. Myth is involved
because the authors identify descriptions of this slow shifting of the sky in
ancient myths from cultures around the globe. The basic premise of the book,
then, is that myth and astronomy go hand in hand, that myth describes
astronomical processes and, more specifically, that ancient cultures were aware
of the precession of the equinoxes. Moreover, the authors contend that ancient
cultures believed precession to have a primary influence on the changing
destinies of humankind.

As
mentioned, precession is usually tracked with the changing constellations in
which the equinox sun rises. In Western astrology, there are twelve
constellations, and thus each "constellation age" lasts about 2,160
years.However, the authors of Hamlet's Mill also noted that, during
the precessional cycle, the equinox and solstice sun periodically line up with
the Milky Way—the band of stars we see arching through the night sky that is
also our home galaxy. One direct clue in Hamlet's
Mill jumped out at me, and pointed me in a promising direction. The authors
wrote that some 6,400 years ago (4400 B.C.), the fall equinox sun coincided
with the Milky Way, and this was the fabled Golden Age found in many myths. In
other words, this was a time when the sun, on the fall equinox, was in
conjunction with the Milky Way, an era when a harmonious alignment existed in
the sky. Of course, precession eventually causes this alignment to end,
fostering a kind of celestial disharmony. Imagine how our ancient ancestors
would have responded to this ever-increasing cosmic disharmony. The authors
suggest this "untuning of the sky" resulted in our descent into
history, with its increasing wars and fading memories of an ancient paradise in
which cosmic harmony prevailed. Historically, the ancient paradise may be a
collective memory of the Great Mother-worshipping culture of our Neolithic
ancestors, in which the ideal of partnership and peaceful coexistence reigned.
Moreover, 4400 B.C. does match up pretty well with when partnership culture was
disrupted and a patriarchal system based upon hierarchies of dominance began
arising in the Middle East—the forerunner of our own Western Tradition.

Interestingly,
Santillana and von Dechend also discuss the ancient myths that relate a belief
in a future time when cosmic harmony would return and an earthly paradise would
resurface. In 1993, I began to carefully think through the implications of
theseideas. If the fall equinox sun
conjuncting the Milky Way was considered to be a precessional era of harmony,
and a future return of this type of alignment was projected, what could it be?
Well, the astronomical fact is that the alignment described above occured some
6,400 years ago. Since the equinoxes and solstices divide the year into
quarters, I reasoned that one-quarter of a precessional cycle later (6,450
years), the December solstice sun will be
joined with the Milky Way. In other words, the December solstice sun will be
conjuncting the bright band of the Milky Way around the year A.D. 2012! I
felt I had found the answer to my question about the true meaning of the Maya
end-date, and quickly sought to confirm it. I studied star charts and proved to
myself that, yes, despite it never making the morning newspaper headlines, a
very rare alignment in the precessional cycle will occur on the December solstice
of A.D. 2012—the end-date of the Maya calendar! Precession brings one of the
seasonal quarters (either the March equinox, the June solstice, the September
equinox, or the December solstice) into alignment with the Milky Way once every
6,450 years. However, the alignment of 2012 occurs only once every 25,800
years! Furthermore, the alignment involves the December solstice, the
traditional "beginning" point of Earth's yearly cycle. Earth itself,
and by extension its citizens, were involved in the alignment.This was certainly an event worthy of being
recognized by the ancient Maya as a rare World Age shift. Could it be, I
thought to myself, that the ancient Maya knew about precession thousands of
years ago? And did they understand something about the Milky Way and our
alignment with it that has escaped detection by modern science? My discovery
answered one question but raised a host of others: Where exactly was the Long
Count invented? Is the alignment of 2012 somehow encoded into Maya myths? Is it
discussed in Maya hieroglyphic texts? Is it portrayed on Maya carvings? If so,
how?I now had the key to understanding
the meaning of the Maya end-date, but it was clear that I was venturing into
uncharted territory. I dove further into the academic literature, but nothing I
read had anything to say about an astronomical alignment on the 2012
end-date.I felt bewildered because my
discovery was not based on conjecture, it was simply making a connection
between two facts. First, the 13-baktun cycle of the Maya Long Count calendar
ends on December 21, 2012. Second, a very rare alignment in the cycle of the
precession of the equinoxes culminates on that day. Given this compelling
"coincidence," in 1994 I asked esteemed Maya scholar Dennis Tedlock
what he thought of it. He replied that he too had noticed this unusual
situation in 2012, but did not know what to make of it. Were the ancient Maya
aware of precession? Did they purposefully fix the end of their Long Count
calendar to a rare alignment in the precessional cycle? If so, how were they
able to accurately calculate the rate of precession? I had the impression that
this train of thought was off limits in academia, that the implications were
just too tantalizing to be credible.

However,
I remained undaunted by the silence of the Ivory Tower, and by early 1994 I was
making progress sorting out the data. I had been studying Maya cosmology for
almost seven years, having published three books on the subject, so I already
had a good understanding of Maya myth, calendrics, and astronomy. I continued
to review pertinent academic studies, looking for connections between astronomy
and Maya myth. I focused my attention on the astronomy associated with the
end-date alignment: the December solstice sun, the Milky Way, and the stars of
Sagittarius and Scorpio. Three facts loomed before me:

_ The ecliptic is the path travelled by the sun,
moon, and planets through the sky. Twelve constellations lie along the
ecliptic, and the sun passes through all twelve during the course of one year.
The ecliptic crosses over the Milky Way at a 60° angle near the constellation
Sagittarius. As such, it forms a cross with the Milky Way, and this cosmic
cross was called the Sacred Tree by the ancient Maya.3 (The cross
form was also known as the "crossroads.") Amazingly, the center of
this cosmic cross, that is, right where the ecliptic crosses over the Milky
Way, is exactly where the December
solstice sun will be in A.D. 2012. This alignment occurs only once every
25,800 years.

_ The Milky Way is observed as a bright, wide band
of stars arching through the sky. In the clear skies of ancient Mesoamerica,
many dark, blotchy areas can be observed along the Milky Way's length. These
are "dark-cloud" formations caused by interstellar dust. The most prominent
of these is called the "dark-rift" or the "Great Cleft" of
the Milky Way. It looks like a dark road running along the Milky Way, and it
points right at the cosmic crossing point, the center of the Maya Sacred Tree,
right where the sun will be in 2012! The Maya called this dark-rift the Black
Road, or the Road to the Underworld. They seem to have imagined it as a portal
to another world, and the December solstice sun can enter it only in A.D.
2012.

_ The area of the sky where all of these symbols and
celestial objects converge is the center of our Milky Way Galaxy. This was
perhaps the most astounding thingI
discovered. The part of the Milky Way that the December solstice sun will
conjunct is also where the center of our Galaxy (the Galactic Center) is
located. It is the cosmic womb from which new stars are born, and from which
everything in our Galaxy, including us, came.

It
is important to visualize our relationship to the Milky Way. The Milky Way is
saucer-shaped and appears to us as a white band of stars. When we look at the
Milky Way in the night sky, we are looking out along the edge of a spinning
disk, as if looking at the edge of a spinning bicycle wheel. If we look away
from the center of this "wheel," we look toward Gemini and Orion, where
we gaze into the vastness of open space outside our Galaxy. The Milky Way is
thin and diffuse in this direction, and we see only whispy strands of white. If
we look in the other direction, however, toward the center of the wheel, at its
"axle," we see a plethora of stars and a rich cauldron of creation.
Here is the cosmic oven of the Milky Way's center, and the dark-rift points
right to it. The Milky Way is very bright and wide in this area, as if
pregnant, and for this reason, I realized, the Maya recognized it as the womb
of the sky. They considered this bulging area of the Galactic Center to be the
cosmic source and center, the womb of All.

I
was extremely intrigued with what I was finding, and felt I was unlocking
long-lost secrets of Maya cosmology. I had answered my guiding question about
what event in the cycle of precession occurs in A.D. 2012. The answer: a rare
conjunction of the December solstice sun with the Galactic Center. I published
my initial findings in late 1994.4 Thereafter, I was intensely
engaged in tracking down the answers to the other questions that were popping
up. My initial discovery opened up even more bizarre avenues of inquiry. For
example, could the 2012 alignment cause Earth's poles to shift, resulting in
sudden global catastrophe? Could the "field effects" of our changing
relationship to the Milky Way stimulate genetic or spiritual evolution on
Earth? If so, why are these possibilities not recognized in our supposedly
superior Western science?Did the
Mayas' focus on the Galactic Center have anything to do with the fact that
astrophysicists have discovered a Black Hole—a possible portal through space
and time—residing there? It was obvious I had my work cut out for me, and I
determined to look into these mysteries as deeply as I could.

For
two years, 1995 and 1996, I was immersed in research, obsessed with the
labyrinthine Pandora's Box I had opened. These were very busy and introspective
years, and I felt charged with a mission and full of enthusiasm.Throughout, I had the obligations of life to
attend to, working and paying the bills. Fortunately, I lived simply and
efficiently, and so had time to cosmologize. And I was making progress. It
seemed at times as if mysteries were solved almost by magic. The more I learned,
the better I was able to formulate questions. As soon as I had framed a
question correctly, the answer appeared.Soon, a general theory emerged: The
ancient Maya understood something about the nature of the cosmos and the
spiritual evolution of humanity that has gone unrecognized in our own
worldview. This understanding involves our alignment with the center of our
Galaxy, our cosmic center and source, and identifies A.D. 2012 as a time of
tremendous transformation and opportunity for spiritual growth, a transition
from one World Age to another.

The
bottom line of my theory is that the
ancient Maya chose the 2012 end-datebecause this is the date on which occurs a rare alignment of the
solstice sun with the Galactic Center. I tested my theory, revised it,
corresponded with Maya experts and found that by synthesizing recent advances
in the fields of archaeology, ethnography (the study of culture),
archaeoastronomy (the study of the relationship between astronomy, archaeology,
and cultural beliefs), epigraphy (the study of the Maya hieroglyphic writing),
and iconography (the study of symbols and pictures), I could strongly support
my ideas. Knowing the controversy my work might arouse in the academic
community, I felt compelled to document my arguments so that my theory could
not be dismissed as vague speculation. My self-published book The Center of Mayan Time presented the
case as of early 1995, but more evidence continued to emerge, until a unified
vision of the profound scope of Maya knowledge began to gel. By early 1997 I
finished a magnum opus study—the original version of Maya Cosmogenesis 2012. It was huge, exhaustive, and covered a
broad spectrum of related questions. I had identified how the 2012 alignment
manifests in the symbolism of the Maya ballgame, in birthing rituals, and in
King accession rites. Furthermore, I had traced the origins of the Long Count
calendar to the little-known site of Izapa, and decoded its monuments as
initiatory devices into a forgotten Galactic Cosmology.I began to solicit academic commentary on my
book, openly inviting critique, by sending out abstracts to selected scholars.
There was little response. Most of them simply did not have time to
comment.However, I remembered that
Robert Bauval, author of The Orion
Mystery, had advised me to be persistent.

By
this time (mid-1997), I had published over a dozen articles on Maya cosmology
and the precession question.Finally,
my friend Jim Reedconvinced the
Institute of Maya Studies that it would be worth bringing me to Miami to
present my pioneering work. The Institute of Maya Studies is associated with
the Miami Museum of Science and Planetarium, and has hosted Maya scholars such
as Dennis Tedlock and Munro Edmonson. I was honored to be invited to present my
theory at such a prestigious venue. I suspected I was on the cutting edge of
where the Maya experts themselves were going and, in the end,my presentation on August 20, 1997, was well
received. It had the feel of a breakthrough, especially in regard to the acceptance
of my work by academia.5 Nevertheless, I was not naive, and I knew
that it would take years for an "outsider" like myself to make
inroads into Maya scholardom. I had stormed the Ivory Tower, left my message,
and that was enough for now.

Fortunately,
around the same time, Barbara Hand Clow, a long-time believer in my work and
copublisher at Bear & Company Publishing, encouraged me to begin revising
the work for publication. The challenge of transforming what was originally an
exercise in academic schematizing into something that is actually readable has
been daunting at times. Many people have helped in this endeavor, and I am
grateful to them all. At last I was blessed with an opportunity to share my
discovery with a much larger readership.

My
work fits into an emerging trend of independent researchers decoding ancient
precessional mysteries. Importantly, there have been many key breakthroughs in
understanding ancient Egyptian cosmology. Jane B. Sellers's The Death of Gods in Ancient Egypt
carefully outlines a compelling argument that certain astronomical phenomena,
including the precession of the equinoxes, were understood by ancient Egyptian
skywatchers. In The Orion Mystery,
Robert Bauval and Adrian Gilbert explain how the Great Pyramid of Egypt is a
precessional star-clock. Sight tubes within the pyramid, usually called
"air-shafts," point to Sirius, but only during a specificera of precession. In Fingerprints of the Gods, sleuth-scholar Graham Hancock adds to
this discovery by showing that the constellation Leo the Lion was rising on the
vernal equinox at the "Zero Time" of 10,500 B.C.Hancock believes the lion-like Sphinx may
have been the earthly symbol of the constellation Leo. Based upon this insight,
and other evidence that suggests the Sphinx was constructed much earlier than
previously thought, perhaps even during the Egyptian Zero Time, Hancock
suggests that the builders of the Sphinx lived during the astrological Age of
Leo—around 10,500 B.C. The Sphinx then looms as a mute witness to an era of
precession long past, and that precessional knowledge goes back to the very
dawn of human civilization.

The
idea that the Egyptians were aware of precession is not new. In compelling and
original studies published in the 1940s and 1950s, much of it stemming from
field observations, Alsatian researcher R. A. Schwaller de Lubicz defined Egypt
as the great parent culture from which Old World wisdom emanated. In his book Sacred Science, de Lubicz shares the
data that led him to conclude that the ancient Egyptians were aware of the
precession of the equinoxes.

The
Babylonians also seem to have been aware of precession. As early as 1906,
historian of science J.L.E. Dreyer noted that three Babylonian tablets, each
from a different era, give three different positions for the equinox, proving
that the Babylonian astronomers were aware of precessional movement.6
The Vedic astronomers of ancient India, according to Vedic scholar David
Frawley, were also aware of precession—a knowledge possibly going back 6,000
years.

Moving
to the New World, William Sullivan's book The
Secret of the Incas decoded precessional mysteries in the mythology and
beliefs of the Inca in South America. Sullivan's work is well researched and
adds a great deal to our understanding of how precessional knowledge manifested
in the New World. Among independent scholars, at least, it appears asif there is a genuine revolution astir in
how we view prehistoric peoples.

This
revisioning has fought a persistent bias that survives in theassumptions of scholars as well as
laypeople. Were our ancestors primitive, graceless cave dwellers, unaware of
their relationship to the larger cosmos? Or did they gaze into the night sky
with an appreciation for the majesty of it all, possessing insights into cosmic
processes that are now lost to us? The new perspective championed by many
independent thinkers favors the latter view.

For
example, Barbara Hand Clow, in her book The
Pleiadian Agenda, explores the deeper implications of the alignment in A.D.
2012. Going beyond strictly Egyptian or Maya perspectives, herinsights into the history and future ofour multidimensional cosmos testify to the
deeply profound relationship that humanity has always had with the cosmos.
According to Clow, we are entering a phase of human spiritual growth with
galactic implications. Also taking a larger view of these intriguing ideas are
Dennis and Terence McKenna, who in their book The Invisible Landscape mentioned the eclipse of the Galactic
Center by the solstice sun in 2012. The McKennas arrived at the 2012 date using
sources that did not involve the Maya calendar. This book was an underground
classic upon publication in 1975, and was revised and republished in 1993. The
McKennas write that the alignment in 2012 could "implicate the galaxy as a
major formative influence upon the structure of the molecules that maintain and
define life."7I can
trace my interest in precession back to my encounter with this book in
1984.The Invisible Landscape and Hamlet's
Mill are the two earliest sources that recognized the impending alignment
of the solstice sun with the Milky Way Galaxy. I outline the history of the
discovery of this idea in Appendix 7.

Despite
the wider implications of this discovery, in my work I have tried to focus on
how the precession of the equinoxes was mapped and calibrated among the ancient
civilizations of the New World, specifically in Mesoamerica. Whathas emerged from my research is nothing less
than the recovery of a lost worldview containing insights we are just beginning
to appreciate. Maya Cosmogenesis 2012
is devoted to exploringMaya
understanding of the 2012 end-date and the philosphy and cosmology that goes
with it. I have reconstructed what Iterm a lost Galactic Cosmology, and I explain itsformulation, content, and the mythological
language used by the Maya to encode its meanings. This is a book about
cosmogenesis, the creation of the world. The Maya believed that the world will
be reborn, in a sense "re-created," in the year we call 2012. Why did
the Maya believe this? Where did this profound knowledge originate? What does
it mean for the world to be "created" in 2012? And what are the
implications for us? My book goes deep into previously unfathomed areas of the
ancient Maya mind, and speaks to an event that is right around the corner. In
addition, I offer an interpretation of what this rare cosmic event portends for
those of us who will live through it. I believe, and I suspect that the Mayas
believed, that we are all indispensible participants in the adventure of
cosmogenesis. We co-create the world, and what looms before us is a great
opportunity for spiritual growth, both individual and planetary.

Maya Cosmogenesis 2012 is divided into
five Parts, each rigorously unveiling the archaeological and mythic dimensions
of my theory.The text contains the
flow of ideas as described below, as well as endnotes. For readers interested
in documentation, the endnotes contain citations and more detailed arguments.
The appendices are more technical still and explore academic considerations
that should appeal more to the Maya specialists. For example, Appendix 5
contains my response to arguments against my theory that Maya scholars are
likely to put forward. Likewise, Appendix 2 is a thorough examination of the
academic literature pertaining to what the ancient Maya knew about
precession.

Part
I of my bookprovides a basic
orientation to Mesoamerican civilization: the timeline of its development, its
calendars, and its cosmology. Charting time was a central concern of the Maya,
as was "finding the center" of the cosmos. Driven by a shamanistic
interest in knowing the sky, the ancient Mesoamerican skywatchers discovered
the astronomical phenomenon known as the precession of the equinoxes, and this
knowledge was encoded into their Creation mythology. I introduce the two basic
calendar systems used by the Maya and discuss how astronomy developed at
various Mesoamerican sites, including those of the Olmec, Zapotec, Toltec,
Izapan, and Mayan people.

It
is my contention that understanding the nature of precession became the central
interest of Mesoamerican shaman-astronomers. They believed that specific types
of alignments in the cycle of precession stimulate evolution for life on Earth.
In my research, I determined that the Toltecs and the Maya devised two
different methods for tracking precession. In other words, two different and
competing cosmologies emerged—one involved the Long Count calendar, with its
end-date in A.D. 2012, and the other involved the New Fire ceremony. The true
meaning of these traditions is reconstructed. Furthermore, I show how the two
systems were merged at Chichén Itzá in the ninth century A.D., and how the
schism in the Mesoamerican psyche was healed. Thus, Part II encapsulates a
"unified Mesoamerican cosmology" based upon precessional insights
discovered by the ancient Maya skywatchers.

I
will show how the galacticalignment of
A.D. 2012, pinpointed by the Long Count end-date, was encoded into Maya
Creation mythology. The Hero Twin myth is the original Creation myth of the
Maya. In Part III, I reveal the deeper symbolism of the Hero Twin myth, a
symbolism that encodes precessional astronomy. My interest here is in getting
to the heart of how the Maya understood cosmogenesis—the birth of the world and
its rebirth in A.D. 2012. Ultimately, the Maya envisioned the alignment to
occur in 2012 as a union of the Cosmic Mother (the Milky Way) with First Father
(the December solstice sun). Woven into Maya astronomy, mythology, and
cosmology is a profound understanding of Earth's evolving consciousness. As my
conclusions began to gel, I realized that the ancient Maya developed a
sophisticated cosmological paradigm that modern science has yet to recognize.

Part
IV is devoted to exploring the little-known pre-Maya site of Izapa. Whereas
traditional Maya scholarship interprets Izapa as an important site in the
development of pre-Maya and Maya culture, I will reveal it to be the most
innovative center of Mesoamerican astronomical, shamanic, calendric, and
religious activity. I will show how ancient Izapa was the ceremonial site where
the Galactic Cosmology was discovered. In fact, I believe Izapa to be the
location where thousands of ancient calendar-priests were initiated into Galactic
Cosmology. My interpretation of Izapa's more than sixty carved monuments
reveals the highest esoteric secrets of ancient Maya cosmology.

In
Part V, I summarize the profound implications of this newly reconstructed
Galactic Cosmology. I take the reader on an intiatory journey around the
monuments of Izapa, to reveal the ancient mysteries of Galactic Cosmology.We end with an understanding of why the
Maya calendar ends in 2012, how this knowledge was built into Maya mythology
and institutions, and what it means for us today.

I
hope this book will open up new vistas in our understanding of theMaya, and preserve for the appreciation of
future generations the amazing genius of their civilization. We are just beginning to understand what they
knew. The importance of the foundation-principle of this ancient
cosmovision—the precession of the equinoxes—must be recognized as having a
formative influence on the evolving life of Earth. And yet, modern science
refuses to acknowledge this, and the fact that a rare galactic alignment looms
before us has no place in our short-sighted technocracy. Perhaps our limited
sight will be our undoing. We know about precession today, but, as the authors
of Hamlet's Mill write, "The
space-time continuum does not affect it [precession]. It is by now only a
boring complication."8

To
the Ancients, precession had the most profound of implications. To their
understanding, it was involved in nothing less than the evolution of life on
Earth, propelling Earth's lifeforms to higher levels of organization and
complexity. The end result is the full unfolding of spirit and consciousness on
a planet that began as molten rock. The Maya understood that whereas the
260-day sacred cycle is our period of individual gestation, the 26,000-year
cycle is our collective gestation—our collective unfolding as a species. Their
calendars and myths encode these truths. Furthermore, 2012 is the zero point of
the process—the moment of collective spiritual birth. And how can we say that
they are wrong? One thing is for sure, in this case time will tell. The era of transformation is upon us.

It
appears as if a long chapter in human history is coming to a close, one that
began perhaps 13,000 years ago. At the dawn of agriculture in the Paleolithic
Age, human beings began to understand the nature and potential of the yearly
cycle. They discovered planting and harvesting. As their time-concept was
enhanced, they planned for a future barely appreciated by their immediate
ancestors, and the resultant effects on human culture were transformative. The
same might be said for us in regard to our understanding of the larger Galactic
Season of precession: if we can enlarge our spacetime concept and appreciate
the immanent potential of this Great Year, the future of the human race might
be brighter than we can presently imagine. Suffice it to say that we are, in
fact,living in the Maya end-times, and
something completely unprecedented does appear to be going on. Maya Cosmogenesis 2012 endeavors to
resurrect and restore the ancient Galactic Cosmology of the Maya.It is a "first reconnaissance"
into a profound knowledge that once flowered in Mesoamerica, and promises to
again. According to this ancient knowledge, a door into the heart of space and
time opens in 2012. May we all take a step forward.